Best Squats You Aren’t Doing!

Earlier this week I posted how to solve the common problems that people have with squats (you can check it out HERE). One of my major goal in writing that post is once we can perform squats well in the foundational position, it opens up such a bigger world of training! The saddest thing for me when we have an opportunity to do better, we often think smaller.

I love the idea of October being Squatober, for example, but that means people are just going to do literally hundreds of the same type of squats. The whole point of functional fitness is to realize we move in complex ways and seeing squats as a movement, not just an exercise helps us explore that much bigger world.

Such statements by physical therapist, Dr. David Tiberio, really echo why we want to think in this manner, “Why is three-dimensional motion so critical? It mimics functional activities, so it allows movements to be more authentic. It also allows the three planes of joint motion to occur simultaneously, preventing tightness in the joint capsules, ligaments, and muscles.”

Squats just like any other movement pattern can be performed in a much wider scope than just up and down. One of the benefits of doing so is developing the glutes better as Dr. Stuart McGill points out, “The high lateral glute is developed with with most one-legged resistive squat exercises.”

Using subtle changes in our stance like in the Sprinter Stance and changing holding position as in the Shoulder position really makes squats gain a whole new challenge.

The Rear Foot Elevated Squat or Bulgarian Split Squat has gotten a lot of attention for its ability to take us closer to being truly single leg and developing stability and mobility at the same time. However, there are many ways to challenge this movement as Jessica and I show to increase these qualities and make squats more than JUST another leg workout!

Making you better and opening up a world of smarter fitness is what DVRT is all about! That is why we are trying to make DVRT more accessible to you. Don’t miss 25% off AND two workout programs for FREE when you use coupon code “fall” HERE